Food Allergy? Pack a Plan.

Shahryar Rizvi

Laurel

You'd think that finding an airline representative eager to hear good news from a passenger -- rare as that might be these days -- would be easy. You'd be wrong.

Every airline has a place on its Web site where you can e-mail its customer relations department, but as you put it in a subsequent note, "I just feel that's an automated, ignored 'yeah, we'll read it' " route. 'Tis true that e-mails are easy to write and even easier to dismiss, which is perhaps why the airlines we contacted -- Continental, Delta and United -- agreed that plain old-fashioned snail mail was the way to go. A typed or handwritten letter sent to an airline's corporate headquarters, and specifically its customer service department, is the best bet for ensuring that your flight-time flattery makes its way to an employee's file. In your case, send it to United Airlines, Attn: HDQPR, 77 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago, Ill. 60601.

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